Let's see if we can make a distinction
between transitive and intransitive
verbs. Now both of these words have the
the word "trans" in them, and we'll focus
on that for a moment. So "trans" comes
from Latin and it means "across." And then
the other thing that is common to both
of them is that they go back to the
Latin verb "ire." And "ire" means "to go." So
a transitive verb is literally is a
verb that goes across something. And when
I think about this, I tend to think of
it in relation to a plane, let's say. In
fact, there is an airline company (a Canadian
airline company) that's called Air
Transat, and clearly they
have the same idea--that a plane goes
across the sky and it makes a landing.
And that landing, in terms of a verb, is
what we call the direct object. So the
idea with a verb that's transitive is
that it carries an action across to a
direct object: it lands on a direct
object. If we look at the first example
here now, we can see how this works.
So the first example reads, "Please pass
the sugar." "[P]ass" is our verb. And if we say
"who or what?" ...
so to find the direct object you want to
ask who or what with the verb,
we would say "well, the sugar." So
the sugar is the object that's being
passed, and that means that "pass" is a
transitive verb. And in the dictionary,
what you would see then is you would see
"verb
transitive" (VT). That's what that little
abbreviation in the dictionary means: verb
transitive. The second one reads, "Those
boys giggle easily." And in this case,
again we have a verb, so the verb here is
"giggle." But if we were to say "giggle
who or what?" we can see that "easily" is
not the answer. "[E]asily" answers the
question
"how?" or "to what degree?" and "easily" then
is an adverb. So "giggle" doesn't have a
direct object; "giggle" is an intransitive
verb. And we could abbreviate this to
verb intransitive (VI), which is also a Latin
abbreviation ultimately. Next one: "I
will report you."
In this case, "report" is the verb. And
if you say "report who or what?"
then the answer is "you." And "you," then,
is the direct object, and "report,"
again, is a transitive verb. Last one here:
"She was meditating." "[W]as" is our verb, but
this one is a little bit different. "[W]as"
is called a linking verb, and that's
because what comes afterwards is re-describing
the subject. Now we'll talk
about this in a separate movie, but it's
good at this point just to be aware that
not every verb is going to be transitive
or intransitive.
And one last point to emphasize and
that's that some verbs can be transitive
or intransitive, and it all depends on
context. So, for instance, if I say "she
climbed a tree," then you can see ...
this one is clearly transitive because
she climbs something; there's a direct
object there. Whereas, if I just say "she
climbed and climbed" (she's doing a lot of
climbing here), you can actually see
there's no direct object there, and the
sentence just stops. So that's really
crucial--that you don't lock these verbs
into being always either transitive or
intransitive, but really look at the
context and figure out if the verb has a
direct object or not.